Congratulation to Tom Hitchings on winning the IUCr poster prize at the recent Spring Meeting of the British Crystallographic Association
Tom Hitchings was awarded the International Union of Crystallographers (IUCr) poster prize at the Spring Meeting of the British Crystallographic Association (BCA). This is the main annual meeting that brings the British crystallographic community together across all areas, from biological to chemical to physics ascpects of the discipline. Tom is a first year PhD student studying under the supervision of Paul Saines. Tom’s prize winning poster was entilted “LnOHCO3 Magnetocaloric Frameworks: A Potential Sustainable Replacement for Liquid Helium Vapour Compression”. The prize was awarded jointly to, coincidently, another chemistry PhD student at Kent; Lee Birchall for his poster “Design, synthesis and investigation of a series of isostructural spin-crossover co-crystal solvates using crystal engineering concepts” from the Supramolecular, Interfacial and Synthetic Chemistry (SISC) group. This outcome was particularly noteable as it was the first time Tom had attended a conference during his PhD.
The meeting was held jointly with the British Association of Crystal Growers in an online format. Overall the meeting was a productive one for the MEE group, and the School of Physical Sciences in general. Three talks and two posters were presented by members of the MEE group. A further two posters and two talks at the Young Crystallographer’s satellite meeting from the SISC group. This continues a traditional in recent years of a strong representation of Kent at the meeting.